The same could be said of other orders: Religious sisters nationwide have declined by 67 percent since 1965, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.

Some more traditional orders, however, find young women eager to wear the habit and veil long since discarded by most Grand Rapids Dominicans.

At the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, nearly 83 women have joined since its founding in 1997. Their average age is 26.

Reaching young women

Still, the Grand Rapids Dominicans seek new ways to invite women to a way of life they find fulfilling but seemingly at odds with a career- and sex-oriented culture.

About 45 female Aquinas College students live in Marywood's former nursing wing. Some have prayed and studied with the sisters in a new program called Benincasa, or "house of welcome." A two-week service program for college-age women is planned for May.

"There aren't so many sisters in high schools and colleges (anymore), so it's an effort to offer opportunities for young women to get to know sisters," said Sister Kathi Sleziak, vocation minister.

Gone are the days when every Catholic school kid worked under a nun's watchful eye. Dominican Sisters taught many after coming to Traverse City in 1877, then moving to Grand Rapids in 1888. They opened numerous schools, including Catholic Junior College, which became Aquinas.

Based at their stately Marywood motherhouse at 2025 E. Fulton St., today's Dominicans counsel homeless people in Grand Rapids, help run parishes in rural Michigan and deliver babies in Peru. They read to the blind, work with refugees and host spiritual retreats and yoga classes at the interfaith Dominican Center at Marywood.

Press Photo/Hollyn JohnsonSister Barbara Hansen talks Monday with Third Ward Commissioner James White during her monthly show on GRTV.

Community involvement

Their long tradition of social justice made national headlines in 2003 when Sisters Jackie Hudson, Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte were imprisoned for defacing a Colorado missile silo to protest nuclear arms. Sisters marched for civil rights in the 1960s, and one was held hostage while doing relief work in Guatemala.

A former Dominican prioress and Aquinas vice president, she dismisses criticism the sisters are too political.

"The promotion of justice is just essential to the work of charity," says Sister Hansen, 70, wearing a peace T-shirt in a former rectory she shares with three sisters.

Vatican II encouraged sisters to return to the spirit of St. Dominic and study of Scripture, says Sister Mary Navarre, a member of the congregation's leadership team. That led the Order of Preachers, as Dominicans are called, to new ways of proclaiming God's word, she says.

She says the change has been healthy, prompting sisters to meet contemporary needs.

"We hold the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other."

But some sisters chose to return to secular life and fewer joined religious orders. The number of sisters nationally dropped by 25 percent from 1965 to 1975, according to CARA.

A doubtful future

Sister Mary Aquinas Weber remembers talking to many doubting sisters when she was prioress from 1966 to 1972. Many wanted to marry or disliked the strict structure, and leaving religious life was no longer considered a disgrace, she says.

But Sister Nathalie Meyer, the current prioress, says Dominican values have much to offer today's women whether they take vows or not.

"Maybe our role now is just mentoring people into something beyond us," says Sister Meyer, a Dominican for more than 50 years.

Erin O'Lonergan says the sisters encouraged her in a big way. She lived with them in the Benincasa program as an Aquinas senior. Though she decided religious life is not for her right now, she fell in love with the values of study, community, prayer and service.

"I use that in my daily life," says O'Lonergan, 22, a youth minister at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Grandville. "It's a perfect life motto."

She does not rule out becoming a sister one day.

Dominicans, such as Sister Zapata, would welcome her. But she knows a woman must feel called to religious life, and that only God does the calling.

"I believe in the order, and I'm going to continue until the day I die," Sister Zapata says after her last class of the day. "If it's going a different course, so be it.

"But I think God is going to take care of his church, one way or another. He's going to have workers."